The Following article originated at and
is taken from DiscoverTheNetworks.com

At the height of
the Cold War and the Vietnam War era, the Socialist Party USA of
Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas split in two over the issue of whether
to criticize or even denounce the Soviet Union, its allies, and
Communism: One faction rejected and denounced the USSR and its
allies, including Castro's Cuba, the Sandinistas, North Vietnam and
the Viet Cong, and supported Poland's Solidarity Movement, etc.
This anti-Communist faction took the name Social Democrats USA.
(Many of its leaders -- including Carl Gershman, who became Jeane
Kirkpatrick's counselor of embassy at the United Nations -- grew
more conservative and became Reagan Democrats.) The other faction,
however, refused to reject Marxism, refused to criticize or denounce
the Soviet Union and its allies, and continued to support their
policies -- including the Soviet-backed nuclear-freeze program that
would have consolidated Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe. This
faction, whose leading figure was Michael Harrington, in 1973
took the name Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC),
whose membership included many former
Students for a
Democratic Society activists.
By 1979 DSOC had made major inroads into the
Democratic Party and claimed a national membership of some 3,000
people. In 1982 DSOC
merged with the New American Movement to form the Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA).

DSA describes
itself as "the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist
International" and ranks as the largest socialist organization in
the United States. “We are socialists," reads the organization's
boilerplate, "because we reject an international economic order
sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender
discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and
violence in defense of the status quo.” "To achieve a more just
society,"
adds DSA, "many structures of our government and economy must be
radically transformed. ... Democracy and socialism go hand in
hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken
root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well—everywhere but
in the United States."

DSA
summarizes its philosophy as follows: "Today … [r]esources are
used to make money for capitalists rather than to meet human needs.
We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by
economic institutions should own and control them. Social ownership
could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly
owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives.
Democratic Socialists favor as much decentralization as possible.
... While we believe that democratic planning can shape major social
investments like mass transit, housing, and energy, market
mechanisms are needed to determine the demand for many consumer
goods."

DSA seeks to
increase its political influence not by establishing its own party,
but rather by working closely with the
Democratic Party to
promote leftist agendas. "Like our friends and allies in the
feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing
movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party,"
says
DSA. "We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s
left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. ...
Maybe sometime in the future ... an alternative national party will
be viable. For now, we will continue to support progressives who
have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means
left-wing Democrats."

Until 1999, DSA
hosted the website of the Progressive Caucus. Following
a subsequent expose of the link between the two entities, the
Progressive Caucus established its own
website under the auspices
of Congress. But DSA and the Progressive Caucus remain
intimately linked. All 58 Progressive Caucus members also belong to
DSA. In addition to these members of Congress, other prominent DSA
members include Noam Chomsky, Ed Asner, Gloria Steinem, and Cornel
West, who serves as the organization's honorary Chair.

DSA was a
Cosponsoring Organization of the April 25, 2004 “March
for Women’s Lives” held in Washington, D.C., a rally that drew
more than a million demonstrators advocating for the right to
unrestricted, taxpayer-funded
abortion-on-demand.

DSA was also a signatory
to a petition of self-described “civil society” organizations that
opposed globalization and “any effort to expand the powers of the
World Trade Organization (WTO) through a new comprehensive round of
trade liberalization.”

DSA endorsed
Pay Equity Now! – a petition jointly issued in 2000 by the
National Organization for Women, the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor
Union Women, and the International Wages for Housework Campaign – to
“expose and oppose U.S. opposition to pay equity” for women. The
petition
charged that: “the U.S. government opposes pay equity – equal
pay for work of equal value – in national policy and international
agreements”; “women are often segregated in caring and service work
for low pay, much like the housework they are expected to do for no
pay at home”; and “underpaying women is a massive subsidy to
employers that is both sexist and racist.”

In the wake of
9/11, DSA characterized the terror attacks as acts of retaliation
for American-perpetrated global injustices. “We live in a world,”
said DSA, “organized so that the greatest benefits go to a small
fraction of the world’s population while the vast majority
experiences injustice, poverty, and often hopelessness. Only by
eliminating the political, social, and economic conditions that lead
people to these small extremist groups can we be truly secure.”

Strongly opposed to
the U.S. War on Terror and America's post-9/11 military engagements
in Afghanistan and Iraq, DSA is a member organization of the United
For Peace and Justice anti-war coalition led by Leslie Cagan, a
longtime committed socialist who aligns her politics with those of
Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba.

DSA publishes a
quarterly journal titled
Democratic Left, which discusses issues of concern to the
organization and its constituents. The Founding Editor of this
publication was Michael Harrington. DSA has also created a youth
association called Young Democratic Socialists.